Wednesday, February 18, 2015

MMOs to Play Again, Someday

I've been wandering across MMO sites that have been discussing different games. I see some stories for some games, and kind of get an urge to play them again. Though I probably won't because of the lack of time. Then there are some games which I played, and have zero desire to try again.

Would Play Again

TERA - It's still the best and most visceral combat out of all the MMOs I've played. But I don't think the surrounding elements have been improved.

The Secret World - Every time I see people raving about the content in TSW, I get the urge to play again. But then I remember the combat, and how lackluster the performance and responsiveness was.

Defiance - I found Defiance pretty fun. Just not fun enough to keep going.

Elder Scrolls Online - Again, lackluster combat killed this game for me. But I do kind of regret not getting to max level at least and seeing the story.

Not Interested

Rift - I'm not really sure why I don't want to play Rift again. I can't really point to anything the game does poorly. I even had a max level character, before the expansions. Yet I have zero desire to play Rift.

Lord of the Rings - It's just too old for me. It used to be in the "would play again" category, but then I downloaded it and started playing. Fifteen minutes later I couldn't take the graphics and performance anymore.

Age of Conan - another one which I kept thinking that I'd like to try again. Then I did, and got reasonably far leveling before I couldn't take the control scheme anymore.

The irony is that your post several years ago about AoC is what got me to try it out. I still like playing it in spurts, but it can be a real grind in the middle of a level range.

There are a lot of little unique things to LOTRO that I really like, but I have issues with the color scheme with the icons in the UI (I always test non-colorblind when I visit the eye doctor, so I must be close to borderline or something.) I'm glad that my kids really really like the game, however.

I think that I'd put WoW in the maybe kinda sorta list, but I know in the back of my head that the things that drove me to cancel my sub haven't changed. And besides, I'd not even bother with purchasing Warlords since I'd not be going to those areas.

If I had the money (and time), I think I'd like to try Wildstar again, but the sub + purchase is a bit of barrier to me.

Rift, I don't know. Only tried the Beta, and while I found it interesting in premise thematically, it just didn't capture my attention back then.

I'd really ike to go back to Star Trek Online, but I am daunted each time I think of it by the knowledge that I will need to relearn all the ship controls as well as all the away team controls.

I liked Rift a lot, and especially I liked that the developers had a reason why I should be immortal. But once my RP-PvP server was merged into a non-RP-PvP server, I lost my way. I still think I might go back there, one day.

ESO was one that I gave up because I only dabbled in it, and convinced myself that I shouldn't be paying a subscription when I wasn't logging in (too many WoW raids). I liked it, though, and was sorry to pass over it.

I think I'll give ESO another try once it goes B2P. I really enjoyed what I saw of the world and the quests in the beta.

I'd like to see WoW's WoD some time, but at the moment I have limited time and am unwilling to pay full price for an expansion plus a sub on top of it.

When I think of STO I think of how I quite enjoyed the stories and the duty officer system... but I was abysmal and horrendously confused by the combat, both in space and on the ground, and without having the drive to learn how to handle it properly the game doesn't seem worth getting back into.

I played a lot of Rift last year, and for the most part I enjoyed it, but inevitably always end up bored. My theory is that the game itself feels a little cheap, as thought they're trying to do too much in too small a space and not dedicating enough time and resources to any one thing, and for that the game ends up feeling a little hollow underneath the surface. Also, the story just doesn't feel well fleshed out.. almost like a rush job.

Also, heard The Secret World is patching some of the issues newer players tend to be turned off by. I had pretty much written it off late last year but I'll go back when this patch goes out and see if it makes my experience any better.

Rift felt to much like a WoW clone that I couldn't get beyond the first few levels. I might as well play WoW instead.

I want to return to Guild Wars 2 some day. I have a level 19 that I had leveled along with my son, so it would be nice to hit max level there.

TESO lost me around level 10 or so. I might pick it back up once it goes F2P just to see the story (I'm a fan of the single player games). TESO just felt more like a single player game and had too many annoyances for something that was supposed to be a good MMO.

I may try TSW again. The story looks good, but a number of the design decisions were just bad (for example, full voice NPCs with a non-speaking PC leads to many long, tedious NPC monologues.)

Wildstar. Probably never. I think WS will be a college study example of developers trying to design a mass-market MMO will focusing on the wrong core group *and* making too many bad design decisions.